


And the ghosts we knew

by Octoberrose11



Series: ghost!harry [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Retail, M/M, because my job is haunted, ghost!harry, i had the idea for this while at work, spoiler harry becomes a real boy again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:14:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25369687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Octoberrose11/pseuds/Octoberrose11
Summary: He was running on Redbull and determination there was a lot of reasons he could be seeing and hearing things, a lot of reasonable explanations.“You know that talking to yourself is what some consider the first sign of madness don’t you?” The voice comes from behind him again, deep and slow.“Fuck this shit I’m out,” he rushes to the mens bathroom, dumping the mop water out, not even caring that the mop water covers the bathroom floor, getting his pants and shoes wet. He barely catches himself from slipping in his haste to leave the bathroom, pulling his keys to the office out of his pocket.He barges in with a, “NIALL!”, causing the younger man to drop all the cash in his hands.“Fucking hell Lou, what’s the matter with you? The damn store better be on fire.” He starts picking up the money off the floor, throwing Louis a questioning look when he doesn’t say anything.“There’s someone out there,” he whispers out, pressing his back against the office wall.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Series: ghost!harry [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1837162
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	And the ghosts we knew

If Louis has to smile and thank one more customer tonight he’s going to scream. Like both in the literal and metaphorical sense. He grits his teeth as he hands the lady her bag, and her receipt which she snatches out of his hand, before stomping out the door. 

“Bitch,” he mutters under his breath before reaching up and rubbing his eyes, feeling exhausted. 

His friend and also sometimes boss, Niall, sighs from behind him making Louis jump. “There has to be something in the water tonight.” He sighs, rubbing at his forehead. “That’s the sixth customer tonight who’s asked me for a fucking item that’s right in front of them.” 

Working at a semi big chain store as an assistant manager was not Louis’ life plan ten years ago. Hell, it wasn’t even his life plan three years ago and yet here he was. Working for barely above minimum wage for dickass customers who didn’t give a shit that Louis himself was also a human. 

“At least we close in less than five minutes,” he offers anyways with a sigh. “Which is five minutes closer to this hell day being over then it was eight hours ago.” 

Sundays are the worst days to work here, in Louis’ opinion, or at least during the fall and winter it is. Nine hour shifts during football season, especially after a truck day meant that there was at least five hours of boredom during the shift, even with asshole customers and their need for everything to be handed to them personally. Of course there’s always stuff to be done; stocking, facing, recovering, putting items back on the shelves that customers managed to bring all the way to the check out stand before deciding they no longer wanted or even cleaning the store so there was less to do at night. Even with the knowledge that there was stuff to do didn’t lesson the fact that Sundays got to be really boring. 

Niall sighs in agreement, seemingly having followed Louis’ thoughts. “I’ll go lock the ice if you’ll check and make sure the bathrooms are empty.” 

“Done.” 

The walk to the bathroom doesn’t take anytime at all. The last customers (Louis has been keeping count of everyone coming in and out) had left with the bitchy lady before but he still knocks on the men’s bathroom door. You walk in on an elderly man jacking off to porn once and you quickly learn to knock each time you need to go to the bathroom. 

The light clicks on as he opens the door, thankfully motion censored since Ben, their head manager, threw a fit for upgrades a few months ago, which made it a lot easier to quickly check that the room was empty, before he moved on to the woman’s bathroom. 

Niall joins him, arms crossing over his chest as he glances at the clock above the front doors. “How much trouble do you think we’d get in if I close us now?” He asks, half joking. 

“Fuck it, if Ben has a problem with it I welcome him to fire me.” Louis locks door a before moving to door b, both doors clicking into place as he wiggles them back and forth before deeming them secured. 

“Don’t you beg him to fire you once a week anyways?” Niall asks, moving behind the registers to start the time delay for the safe. 

“And yet here I still am, not fired.” Louis replies, beginning to walk around the store, the last check to make sure all customers had left, but also to make sure they didn’t end up getting robbed. 

Talking to himself softly as he goes, he continues to grumble about how shitty his work day was, and just some general nonsense about how tired of the straights he was. 

“We’re all clear Lou,” Niall says, suddenly appearing in front of him. “I’m going to work on the deposit if you don’t mind mopping up really fast? I promise I’ll get us out of here as soon as I can.” 

He offers a weak smile. “Take all the time you need. I’ll try to get the whole store mopped tonight.” 

Niall pats him on the shoulder before taking off to the office, Louis’ drawer in his hands, as Louis heads back into the men's bathroom to make the mop water, still grumbling under his breath. 

“You know it’s not fair that I show up to this hellhole job and work with these hellhole customers and fucking pretend to be nice and they have the nerve to think I’m straight? What kind of bullshit purgatory is this.” 

“There’s people who think you’re straight?” A voice says from behind him. 

The mop crashes out of his hands as he turns around swinging. “What the fuck,” he whispers. The voice had been clear as day and yet there was no one standing there. 

“Of course no one’s here Lou,” he rolls his eyes at himself. “You and Niall walked the whole store and you’re the only two in here.” He eyes the floor. “Except maybe the mice that live in the back room.” 

He goes back to mopping, trying to put it out of his mind. It had been a long day after all, hell a long weekend where he had put in almost sixty hours in a five day span and had another sixteen hours of work time before his next day off. He was running on Redbull and determination there was a lot of reasons he could be seeing and hearing things, a lot of reasonable explanations. 

“You know that talking to yourself is what some consider the first sign of madness don’t you?” The voice comes from behind him again, deep and slow. 

“Fuck this shit I’m out,” he rushes to the mens bathroom, dumping the mop water out, not even caring that the mop water covers the bathroom floor, getting his pants and shoes wet. He barely catches himself from slipping in his haste to leave the bathroom, pulling his keys to the office out of his pocket. 

He barges in with a, “NIALL!”, causing the younger man to drop all the cash in his hands. 

“Fucking hell Lou, what’s the matter with you? The damn store better be on fire.” He starts picking up the money off the floor, throwing Louis a questioning look when he doesn’t say anything. 

“There’s someone out there,” he whispers out, pressing his back against the office wall. 

Niall stills, and blinks at him. “We did the walk though and we saw no one.” 

“Yeah but I swear to god Niall there’s someone in this fucking store with us right now,” he begins biting on his finger nails. 

Niall rolls his eyes before standing up and moving to check the cameras. It’s an old fashioned system, barely younger than Louis himself, which is why it takes a moment for the cameras to appear. Niall uses the remote to rewind the cameras fifteen minutes, miniature versions of themselves running around as they watch. 

Of course there’s no one there. 

They both watch as Louis appears in front of the main chip stand, mop in hand, and then as he makes his way down the main aisle, obviously talking to himself. He continues to make his way around the check stand before they can see him jump, then as he turns around . 

“Uh,” Niall says tilting his head. “What the fuck?” 

On the camera, clear as day, there’s a young man. Or what could possibly be a young man if a man could be made out of what appears to be mist. As soon as he appears he’s gone again. 

“You saw that too didn’t you?” Niall asks, voice low. 

“Yeah,” Louis replies leaning against him, rewinding the tape. “But there has to be some kind of explanation for it, right?” 

Shaking himself off Niall turns back to the cash, determined to get them out of the store as quickly as he could. “I don’t know Lou, all I can tell you is that there wasn’t someone there and then there was and then there wasn’t again and I’m beyond fucking ready to go home. Did you empty out the trash cans?” 

“No.” 

“Go do that, please.” His please is stressed, eyes wide a little with panic, which is probably why Louis does as he asks, the office door slamming shut behind him. 

“You know it isn’t very nice to run away from people when they’re talking to you.” The voice once again says from behind him. 

Louis doesn’t even bother to jump this time, having half expected it. “And it isn’t very nice for hallucinations to continue talking to someone when they realize that they’re hallucinating.” 

“Who’s to say you’re hallucinating then?” the voice gets closer, and if Louis thought hard enough he could almost feel a hand on his shoulder. 

“Well what else would you call this? I’m talking to myself and someone is responding but wait, there’s no one here.” 

“Of course there’s someone here! I’m talking to you aren’t I?” 

Louis huffs, working to condense the trash into one bag. “But you’re not really.” 

The office door slams, and Niall appears behind him, his eyes still a little wild. “Ok we’re good, go clock out and let’s get the hell out of here. I didn’t agree to no demons when I started working here.” 

Louis throws one more quick glance to where he thought the voice had been coming from before he went and did as Niall asked. There had to be a reasonable explanation for all of this, and he’d figure it out in the morning.

Hopefully.


End file.
